Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Thus, each card can beat two specific cards and can lose to other two ones that are
stronger than it. And this is not the limit; the boundaries of rock-paper-scissors can
beexpanded evenmore, andnewerelements canmakethe gamemoreexciting and
surprising.
David C. Lovelace
, a freelance artist and flash animator tried to prove that
by creating unusually large versions of the game. He started with moderate versions,
including 7, 9, 11, 15, and 25 elements, inventing a lot of new hand gestures for
the game: tree, water, lighting, and so on. But it didn't seem enough for him, so the
hardworking inventor designed a rock-paper-scissors type of game with no less than
101 gestures! It took more than a year to finish the game, and the scheme of ges-
tures looks like a big poster (
http://www.umop.com/rps101.htm
). Playing this game,
you can be sure that your opponent's move will always be very sudden. The gen-
eral problem of the game is a very complex table of rules and principles; it is very
hard to learn and remember them. Therefore, it is hard to play it alertly with all the
options in mind and with a conscious strategy. If the rules and number of elements
is very large, most players use some random moves, relying on good luck or use a
very small arsenal of cards.
A game like this printed on paper—in other words, in analog form—would be impos-
sible to play because the dozens of elements and their interconnections are not easy
to follow. But in digital form, all the calculations can be made without the player hav-
ing to think and therefore, very quickly. All you need is a set of implications to com-
pare the game pieces. In other words, dozens of if…then operators should be used,
built upon your game rules.
Soyouseethatthelevelofthegame'sunpredictabilitycanbechangedbyincreasing
the number of game pieces, but this is a pretty extensive way of doing things, isn't
it? What about more intensive approaches? No problem, all you need is to recom-
bine some rules or add new components to the game. For example, a new version
of rock-paper-scissors can be created that is played by two hands, and thus two
cards can be used. For instance, the first card is for one turn only—the recurrent
card—and should be taken from the deck each time, but the second one is in your
inventory (the player can replace the recurrent card with one of the cards from the
inventory). Otherwise, even a dice can be introduced to resolve tied situations in the
game. What would you say about a special board game with some genes from rock-
